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Peter says

I have enjoyed your illustrated guide. It has helped me understand the system, what works and what does not. You do an excellent job in making this topic entertaining enough to keep it interesting, excellent work.

Since my dad is a lawyer (mostly doing corporate law), I have a better idea than most laymen of how the whole system works. Reading this has really, really helped explain that in further detail, but more important you really cover why the system works this way quite exceptionally.

It’s a wonderful departure from the way I’ve seen a lot of “educators” teach. Your examples are crisp and clear and your history of the law was one of the most fascinating things I’ve ever read.

Law professors have a harder task — they have to teach from a bunch of real cases, with set facts, set language in the decision, presenting concepts in bits and pieces. From this aggregate of piecemeal cases they have to come up with principles that explain at least most of them. By not relying on caselaw, I’m free to come up with whatever examples I want to explain both what the law is, and why it is that way.

You’d probably hate the Ace Attorney games from a legal perspective – they operate on the basic principle that anyone accused of a crime is found guilty unless their defense lawyer can expose the real culprit!

Great for dramatic tension and fun gameplay, not so great for giving people a realistic impression of how courts work …

Wait, you mean prosecutors aren’t allowed to whip people and throw coffee at them?!
But seriously, those games are brilliant. I love how you manage to turn a doomed trial around by cross-examining the suspect’s pet parrot.

Actually it’s also supposed to be social commentary on the Japanese legal system (it is a Japanese made game) in which a charge essentially guarantees a conviction thanks to the sheer amount of power a prosecutor has over the criminal investigation and of course the cohesive Asian societal desire to punish “deviants”.

Things are supposed to be changing (as reflected in the most recent game), but I imagine these things don’t usually change quickly.

I’m a bit confused… would this be considered perjury? I don’t know anything about criminal law beyond a high-school education and everything I’ve read up to here in your fantastic illustrated guide, but does a legal “statement” have to be a grammatical “statement”? For example, could something that is clearly a question legally be considered a statement? Or if something is part of a question is it a legal “statement”?

Also, I’m assuming that this is a representation of the police force in the United States of America, but what I’m wondering is “which one?” Like, is it a portrayal of how it appears to the layman, or how it usually functions, or something else?

Sorry for all the questions, I tend to think too much! Thanks for all of your hard work! I’ll buy a book someday!

I think Nathan is drawing this to do a few things:
– lay out the different roles and show how they are different from each other.
– show the perspectives of each of the people in these roles.
– show the potential failings and corruption of each of these roles.

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